Waves in layered media, 2nd edition

This is an Engl ish t ranslat ion of t he Russian edit ion published by "Nauka", Moscow, 1973. The book closely resembles the w e l l received 1st Ed i t ion tha t was a lso publ ished i n t r a n s l a t i o n by Academic Press i n 1960. The new problems t rea ted in th i s ed i t ion inc lude the case of a waveguide or duct where the proper t ies vary both i n t h e v e r t i c a l and t h e ho r i zon ta l d i r ec t ion . The treatment, however, is rather cursory and mode conversion i s not rea l ly cons idered beyond t h a t found i n t h e ea r ly ( c i r ca 1965) adiabatic approaches. The theory of surface waveguides and whispering ga l l e ry modes have also been added. But again the coverage of t h i s new ma te r i a l i s spot ty . Unfor tuna te ly the exce l len t refe rence mater ia l on the underwater sound channel has been abbreviated in this new ed i t ion . In this review we should cal l a t t e n t i o n t o a number of o the r un fo r tuna te i f no t undes i r ab le f ea tu re s . Gauss i an un i t s fo r t he electromagnet ic port ions are used so t h a t comparisons with contemporary wave theory s t u d i e s are hampered. The ma te r i a l is over 10 yea r s o ld in sp i t e o f t he e f fo r t s by Brekhovskikh t o i n c l u d e t h e latest papers when he submit ted the manuscript to the publ isher in 1971. The attempt by the t r ans l a to r t o upda te t h e book cons i s t s of a lengthy appendage of non-cited t i t les of papers mostly published in the Journal of the Acoust ical Society of America. This ra ther biased perspect ive added by t h e t r a n s l a t o r is i n c o n t r a s t t o t h e heal thy balance of acoust ic , e las t ic and electromagnet ic subjects t reated by Academician Brekhovskikh. As i n t h e 1960 ed i t i on , t he der iva t ions a re se l f -conta ined wi th a minimum of mathematical formalism. In s p i t e of t h e above comments, wave t h e o r i s t s will f i n d t h i s a use fu l add i t ion to the i r l ib rary , p rovided they a l ready do not own t h e 1960 ed i t i on . But i t i s a p i t y tha t pub l i she r s would not merely issue a supplement with addenda and corrigenda along with a modes t ly p r i ced r ep r in t ing o f t he i r f i r s t ed i t i on .